Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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It’s Not About the Speech to Schoolchildren

The reaction to President Obama’s planned speech to schoolchildren and the lesson plans sent out by the Dept. of Ed have sparked a firestorm of criticism and accusations about indoctrination, etc.

Many, many people just can’t understand what the big deal is. After all, it’s just a pep-talk about doing well in school and working hard. Sure, there was some language promoting Obama and political leaders. But who cares? It’s just a brief speech by the President after all. Just like Bush the Elder gave in gentler times (which got him a Congressional investigation).

Many are asking the same questions about a number of issues these days. Why the outrage over the deficit? Where were the complaints when Bush the Younger ran it up? Why so exercised about the government health option? Don’t we have Medicare and Medicaid?

Of course Cato scholars, libertarians and many conservatives have criticized these things all along. For some, the new sensitivity, the emotion, is the result of the proverbial straw on a camel’s back, the accumulation of dissatisfaction with various aspects of the government over decades. And what has changed for others is the pace and scope of government expansion at the close of the Bush presidency and the dawn of Obama’s.

The furious reaction to the politicized lesson plan and Obama’s speech to schoolchildren cannot be understood without the context of the bailouts, the stimulus, the debt, GM, the attempt to take over health care.

And now, our kids. And not just the speech and lesson plan, but federal expansion into preschool and early childhood initiatives and home visitations (however voluntary and innocuous-seeming in different times).

They … the government, the meddlers, the nannies … they are coming for our money, our doctors, our guns and our kids. They won’t stop until they control everything.

That’s how it looks to millions of Americans. Fair or not, people are now very sensitive to any actions by the Obama administration.

Just as a lifetime of exposure to an allergen and modest immune reactions can reach some ill-defined tipping point and bloom into full-blown anaphylaxis, many Americans have developed an acute allergy to government intervention and Obama’s grand plans.

In isolation, the reaction to this speech seems wild. Given the context, it’s completely understandable.